He Comes With the Dark

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Northwest of Sedona, Arizona

The present day

He came with the dark…

The first night in her new home, Arabella fell asleep on the pallet she spread among the boxes in the great room downstairs. Exhaustion claimed her almost before her head touched the pillow.

By the next night, she’d set up her beloved antique sleigh bed in the strange upper room she’d claimed for her private sanctuary. And that was where he came to her the first time…

She’d heard about Sedona forever, what a Mecca it was for artists and of all the mysteries and wonders locked amidst the rosy turrets and towers, the coral battlements and castellations of Coconino sandstone. Six months earlier, she’d held an exhibit in Talaquepac, spending three weeks in the area while her paintings and photographs were on display. Now she was back to stay.

The real estate agent had seemed almost too eager, insisting she had just the house for an artist. Perhaps she had been right, although it was by far the strangest house Arabella had ever seen, much less occupied.

The structure twisted around two pillars of stone, rooms linked one after another like the cars of a freight train, some at odd angles to each other. Some rooms were higher or lower than their companions, with ramps or steps connecting them. Yet the moment she stepped through the arched front door, Arabella felt a strong sense of coming home. This was her place, the home she had always longed for, almost without knowing she longed.

He came with the dark.

The second night, she had trouble falling asleep. She’d never been uncomfortable or fearful about being alone. In fact, she was used to solitude. She’d locked all the doors before climbing up to bed, more out of city-bred habit than from any need to bar intruders. This five-acre lot sat at the end of a winding dirt track, which forked off from a maze of other gravel roads that ultimately led back to a normal paved street—actually the highway between Flagstaff and the Verde Valley communities. If a person didn’t know the way, his chances of ending up here were slight indeed.

Still, as she lay staring up at the myriad stars visible through the round skylight, she had a sensation of being watched. The room’s shape was irregular, odd nooks and crannies in all but one wall, as the space flowed around the larger of the stone pillars. Although the starlight provided some illumination, there were dark corners into which she could not see at all.

The shivery sensation grew stronger until her skin quivered as with a chill. Then, at last, she saw the eyes, two almond-shaped amber eyes, shining from one of the niches set in a hollow of the massive wind-carved pillar of stone.

::I come in peace, in harmony.::

The words came not to her ears but directly in her mind. Although there was no sound, she imagined a rich, deep voice, clear as the tolling of a heavy brass bell.

::I came to see who now lives here in my place only to find a lovely woman. I salute your beauty.::

Arabella bit her trembling lip; gasped in a quick, hard breath. Am I losing my mind? I’m not a person who hears voices, not one given to hallucinations. And it’s been years since I used any recreational drugs.

::You worry; you fear. That is not necessary. I will never harm you; never invade beyond the barriers you set for me.::

“Who are you? What are you?”

The echo of a gentle laugh came before his words. Instinctively she labeled the entity male. How she knew, she could not say, but she sensed nothing feminine about the presence at all.

::I am one of the Ancients, one who lived in this place long ago. A part of me has stayed, awaiting the opening of a gate to come again into your world. There are things I must do, duties unfulfilled in my past and errors to be set right.::

“Why me? Why now?”

::I sense you may be the One. Others who came before were too fearful, too filled with disbelief. I sense in you an openness of spirit, a willingness to accept that which you cannot understand, and talent to visualize and to create. Last night, when I watched you sleep, I recognized you are not like the others.::

Arabella drew a deep, shuddering breath, fear and curiosity dancing a pas de deux in her heart. She felt the strange entity told the truth, that he would never harm her, nor would he invade her mind, although he had the power to do so if he wished. That mysterious power excited her, called to a wildness within she had always kept under wraps.

“I…”

::Hush.:: Light as a wisp of fog, she felt a fingertip press against her lips. ::There is no hurry. We have as long as we need, even forever. For tonight, this is enough.:: A caress as soft and cool as the breath of a moist breeze brushed her cheek. Then he was gone.

She fell asleep almost at once and woke the next morning to ponder whether or not it had all been a strange dream.

* * * *

He comes with the dark.

All day the phrase repeated in her mind, reverberated in her heart, resonated in her soul. Would he come again? Did he truly see something in her that no one else had ever noted, some quality he had found in no other? He had called her lovely…No one had ever spoken of her beauty in a way she could believe. No one had ever looked at her with the joy and awe true beauty could evoke.

She had mirrors and she knew how she looked—ordinary. Mousy dark brown hair that was long, thick and wavy, but ordinary. Pale gray eyes, bright and intelligent, but still ordinary. Features even yet unremarkable, a very ordinary female body with perhaps a bit more roundness than the modern world called perfect. Strong, square hands with nimble, blunt fingers that could hold a brush and force it to produce lines and patterns pleasing to the eye, and an artist’s sight to envision a scene, a design, and bring it forth in a photograph or a painting. But that was talent, not beauty.

At odd times during the day, she caught herself studying her reflection. In the bathroom mirror, in the one still pool of the little stream that tumbled over the rocks below her house, in the window once darkness fell outside. From the corner of her eyes, she could almost see a stranger, a person she did not know, but when she looked directly, only her familiar face and form appeared. She grew cross and out-of-sorts. She ruined a canvas with a dozen strokes of scarlet that did not fit her vision at all. She finally gave up any pretense of working. Today it was not to be.

Eager yet hesitant, she prepared for bed at the usual time. The ritual dragged out into a thousand steps, none of which could be abbreviated on this night of nights, but at last, she slipped between the cool, lavender-scented sheets on her bed. The soft cotton of her loose gown slid gently over her body as she moved. She reached out to turn off the light on her nightstand, then laid back to watch the stars appear as her eyes grew used to the dark.

She lay perfectly still, almost rigid. Waiting. Watching. Wanting. The glowing hands on her bedside clock crept slowly, minute by minute, until an hour had passed. He was not going to come. He had realized she was not special, not unique at all. Disappointment dimmed the very stars.

At last she let her body relax, stretching out and twisting to lie on her side, then drawing her knees up, tucking an arm under the pillow and letting her eyes fall shut. She drifted for a time in a drowsy state, neither awake nor asleep, yet a part of her still listened and probed.

::Greetings, little one. Did you think I would not come?::

She jumped at the unexpected words. Did she truly hear or still just sense them? She wasn’t sure. “I’m not little,” she protested. “I’m all of five feet eight inches and more pounds than I care to admit.”

When he laughed, she was sure she truly heard the sound. His laugh was rich and warm, unrestrained. “To me, you are little. You are young and female. You are lovely. How can that combination not be little?”

Yes, he spoke aloud now, in a voice that wrapped around her like dark velvet. Sensuously rich, luxurious, and seductive, intimate and exciting.

“You have given me a voice,” he went on. “That is the first step. I can have nothing I do not obtain from you, except for a shadow of spirit and knowing. It has been so long since I was alive as you are that all my living attributes have been lost. In your thoughts, you gave me a voice, and with it, I can now speak aloud.”

Arabella stared hard. He seemed close, as if he stood at the foot of her bed, inches from her toes. She could not truly see anything there, perhaps a slightly thicker patch of darkness and just maybe a hint of shining eyes, high up, closer to the domed ceiling and its skylight than she could imagine anyone would stand.

“I gave you a voice?” Her own came out in a squeak. She felt as if a dozen frogs had lodged in her throat. “How could I possibly do that?”

The mattress dipped slightly, as if someone had sat on the edge near her feet, but she could still see nothing.

“You are an artist. You can imagine and visualize, can you not? You took the words I gave to your mind and put a sound to them. You are alive, a modern person. You cannot truly believe in telepathy, so you had to ‘hear’ when I spoke. That image came back to me, and I took it for my voice.”

She pondered that strange concept for a moment.

“Do not spend too much time and effort thinking. It is easier to feel and better to dream.” The mattress dipped again, as if he had turned or moved.

Then she felt a cool, strong hand close around her right foot. Questing fingers traced gently across the sole and then touched each toe in turn. The hand shifted to encompass her ankle, fingers completely encircling it.

“Yes, you are little, with fine bones and small feet. I knew that would be true.”

The cool touch was so intimate. Sparkling streaks of energy darted along her nerves from that clasp to her heart, to the warm feminine depths within her. A delicious lassitude crept along her limbs.

“I—I did not give you that touch,” she gasped out. “I did not. I know I did not.”

He laughed again. “No? Are you very sure you did not wish for…did not imagine just for a second or two how it would feel if I were to touch you? The sight I have is limited, incomplete. For now, I have to rely on this. I must use touch to learn you, to come to know every inch of you.”

Every inch. That meant feet and head, and everything in between…The seductive picture invoked by the simple statement set her heart to skipping erratically and sent a flush across her skin. No! I am not ready to give myself up completely to some entity I don’t even know! Fear surged through her as swiftly as excitement had an instant before.

“I have told you I will not harm you. Why are you afraid?”

She shook her head, fighting tears and anger. With a sharp jerk, she kicked her foot free of his clasp. “I do not even know you, your name, who you are and where you’re from. How can I not fear when you put these thoughts into my mind and make me wonder what it would be like to—” She snapped her mouth shut before any more incriminating words could emerge. With them unsaid, she could pretend they did not linger at the edges of her thoughts.

“My name is Zeth-Amad. I come from this place for it was my final home, but also from a time so far back no one now even imagines it. The whole world has changed shape, land to sea and sea to land in that time. In my time, I was a queen’s son, a mage, a priest and shaman, a wise man, a ruler and one who was greatly feared and well respected. Despite all that, I made terrible errors for which I must atone. To atone, I must again have a body and live as a man. I have waited long for the one who could help me achieve that reality once again.”

Something in the simple words forced her to believe. His tone seemed sincere, somber and tinged with regret. One with evil intent would not admit to errors, would he? Her heart wanted to believe. Her body leaped in response to each new aspect she sensed about him.

“Zeth-Ahmed? Do I say that right?”

“Close enough. The sounds of my language were much different from those of yours, but I am learning your words from the pictures in your mind and they come ever easier.”

When she sucked in a deep breath, she smelled a delicate aroma compounded of juniper and sage, smoke, the subtle tang of wet creosote after a desert rain and the ozone sharpness lightning left in the air. “What does that mean, your name?” Images teased the edges of her awareness, too fragile and fleeting to grasp.

He sighed, or so it seemed. “In your words, it might be something like The One Who is Dawn and Darkness or perhaps The Spanner of Dawn and Dusk.”

A breeze whispered across her skin, as if she were nude in the open air, not covered shoulders to mid-calf in soft white cotton. “Ah…” She sighed a response, taking that breeze into her lungs and letting it out again. “I will call you He Comes With the Dark.”

“Close enough,” he said. “What else must you know before you cease to fear me?”

She fought melting lassitude, the urge to trust, to surrender. “You said last night that I was beautiful, yet now you say you cannot really see me. Which is true? What am I to believe? Do you seek to lull me with flattery? I know my own appearance, and no one ever called me beautiful before.” She huffed out a breath and flounced onto her other side, making the bed bounce.

“Only because they must not see the real you. But both statements were true. The beauty I sensed at the very first shines from within you, the essence of your creative spirit. But since as yet I have no eyes, I cannot actually see the outer shell—though I expect to find beauty there, too, as soon as I have eyes with which to see it.”

“Why did I see eyes then last night, shining in the dark?”

Once again he laughed. “Your imagination, little one. You had not yet given me an identity so I could not take those eyes. You imagined some hobgoblin in the dark and saw eyes that fit your fear.”

She shook her head, before she remembered that, even with eyes, he could probably not see her in the darkness. “No, they were not demon eyes, monster eyes. They were—well, strange, but I was not afraid.”

“Shall I take them, then?”

“Do you want to?”

“I am not sure. Think of them again and let me consider.”

Arabella shut her own eyes and tried to call up from memory those strange eyes she had seen in the dark corner, just before he spoke to her, mind to mind. Yes, amber-colored, like the rarest of sun-tinted glass. Shaped like almonds, so—the inner corners rounded and the outer drawn into a point, tilted slightly upward.

She deliberately opened her thoughts, offering the vision to him. “There, will that do?”

“Cat’s eyes, almost. Cougar eyes or maybe the eyes of a wolf. Do you think then that I am a shape shifter?”

Again, a thrill of excitement shivered through her. What if he were? She imagined soft fur under her hands, fur over muscle and bone, hard and hot, and full of potent masculine power.

He laughed yet again. “I could be so if you desired, but I would rather be a normal man. A man with the powers I once had, but still a man, not a beast or a demon or a combination creature of the true dark.”

“Dark as in evil, as in the sum of all fears…” She whispered the words, a quiver of awe chilling her.

“Yes, that dark. Not the simple dark of night, which is lit by the stars and sometimes the moon, but dark deeper than the darkness in a bottomless pit, in a cave at the heart of the Earth. Dark beyond any light at all, beyond any redemption or hope. That I could never be, even for you.”

“So will you take those eyes?”

“Why not? The better to see you, my dear.”

For a long blink, the amber eyes stared at her out of the congealed shadow near the foot of her bed. “Enough for tonight, little one. I will return.”

Between one breath and the next, he was gone, leaving her taut with desire, aquiver with curiosity, overflowing with wonder and a thousand questions begging answer. She could still feel the branding touch of his hand on her foot, the anklet of his strong fingers wrapping her leg. Surely there would be a mark on her skin tomorrow when she awoke, some sign that all of this was not merely a bizarre dream.